


The Ship Who Stole

by The Feels Whale (miscellea)



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Celibacy, Crack, M/M, Other, Virginity or Celibacy Kink, bilbo is a brain ship, dwarves in spaaaaaaaaace, space travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-18
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-29 16:36:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/689117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miscellea/pseuds/The%20Feels%20Whale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a colony of Hobbits far off into Deep Space, away from the territories of Men, Elves, and other large noisy creatures there lives a ship; not an old and soulless salvage crawler with a manual control yoke and a hyper-drive core that is constantly on the fritz, nor yet sleek military corvette with guns instead staterooms and harsh, Spartan interior to match the harsh and Spartan brain inside it; this ship is a retired courier vessel that once served the diplomatic corps and <em>that</em> means comfort.</p><p>Bilbo Baggins was born 150 years ago to Bungo and Belladonna Baggins of the Shire colony located out in the then newly-populated Yavanna system. The colony was new in those days and the Baggins were a prominent family within the community and when Belladonna Baggins conceived her first son he was identified in utero as a prime candidate for Central Communication’s BB Ship program.</p><p>This is, of course, a very polite and sanitized way of saying that a mere five hundred years prior, Bilbo probably wouldn’t have survived to see his first birthday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Anne Mcaffrey's 'The Ship Who Sang', 'The Ship Who Searched', and 'Partnership'. 
> 
> There are others in the BB ship series by other authors, but these are the ones I like.

In a colony of Hobbits far off into Deep Space, away from the territories of Men, Elves, and other large noisy creatures there lives a ship; not an old and soulless salvage crawler with a manual control yoke and a hyper-drive core that is constantly on the fritz, nor yet sleek military corvette with guns instead staterooms and harsh, Spartan interior to match the harsh and Spartan brain inside it; this ship is a retired courier vessel that once served the diplomatic corps and that means comfort.

Bilbo Baggins was born 150 years ago to Bungo and Belladonna Baggins of the Shire colony located out in the then newly-populated Yavanna system. The colony was new in those days and the Baggins were a prominent family within the community and when Belladonna Baggins conceived her first son he was identified _in utero_ as a prime candidate for Central Communication’s BB Ship program.

This is, of course, a very polite and sanitized way of saying that a mere five hundred years prior, Bilbo probably wouldn’t have survived to see his first birthday.

He was born malformed in the extreme. It was only through the intervention of machines built specifically for this purpose that he was able to breathe at all. Bilbo never walked or even crawled on his own without the aid of a medical exoskeleton. Indeed, his skin was too fragile even to tolerate the gentlest of hugs. However inside that twisted cage of bone and flesh there existed a perfectly intact and intelligent little brain, full of wonder and curiosity; a brain that, as his parents were informed by a CenCom BB program recruiter, deserved the chance to fly even if an accident of birth had robbed him of the chance to walk.

Bilbo did well in what he and his classmates referred to colloquially as ‘Shell School’. He grew up blessed in that his parents never truly left his life when many of his classmates had never met their parents at all and only knew of them as a notation in their personnel records. His mother and father were, by comparison, very dedicated vid correspondents and to this day Bilbo still has a tiny private library full of videos of his mother’s garden, his father knocking about their tiny pre-fab kitchen, and every word of love they ever put into a datahedron for him.

When Bilbo graduated school, he applied to the courier vessel program (even though he’d already been visited by several headhunters for the space station recruitment initiative) and was hired by the Diplomatic Corps as a passenger vessel. It was a very prestigious post and meant that he left the shipyards as a state of the art yacht, complete with a coveted Singularity Drive.

To this day he counts his blessings because he has never had to worry about putting together money to buy out his service contract in repayment for his shell-body, not like most of his classmates who went into the Medical Evac Services or the Institute. The D-Core sign their brain ships to limited contracts of service, which when fulfilled releases the brain ship from all service with full ownership of their shell. The average contract is some eighty years long and Bilbo re-upped once in exchange for a complete overhaul of his exterior sensors, internal reservoirs, and drive-cores. By then he knew that when he retired, he wanted to return to the Yavanna system and would need the kind of system resources that could endure living so far away from CenCom’s fleet of engineers.

He ended up staying a bit longer than intended, but it was more out of a sense of attachment to his pilot-partner, Hamfast Gamgee, who was very near retirement age himself and only had a few more years to go. The extra years paid off in the form of several handsome bonuses that he split with his Brawn when Hamfast decided to take up life as a dirt-sider.

They both retired to the Yavanna system, which pleases Bilbo and means he is at least within radio contact of his old partner at all times. He hasn’t accepted a new pilot since and has rather enjoyed the freedom to take his time about it without Central breathing down his neck. True, it’s a bit lonely in the short jaunts as he ferries passengers back and forth between Shire and Bree, the two terraformed planets orbiting Yavanna’s tiny white sun. However, Bilbo has access to long-range communications and there’s always another Brain ship within range of Yavanna who’s up for a bit of a chat.

It’s a comfortable life full of soft-shells that he knows well and who know him well in return. Yavanna has settled well and has a police force now so nothing unexpected ever happens there, which is _precisely_ how the residents like it.

Retirement has been sweet to Bilbo so he likes it that way as well, but sometimes in the darkness between nav-points he thinks of the old days when he used to skirt the edges of civilized space, dancing with raiders who would like nothing better than to capture the diplomats inside him, and occasionally serving as bait in military sting operations …well. It’s just memories of his youth, that’s all.

One buys out of service in order to put an end to adventures, after all.

…right?

 

* * *

 

Bilbo is tucked into his private launch pad located on the outskirts of Hobbiton’s tiny Space Base. He’s just come out of his regular Deep Sleep cycle and there is a lovely stack of letters in his inbox, including a segment of video from Bilbo’s cousin Drogo of his wife’s recent pregnancy.

Technically, Bilbo could have sped through the entire lot within a few seconds. The mental conditioning and augmentation that make him capable of operating his hard-shell body mean that he can process data a few hundred times faster than the average soft-shell person, but that doesn’t always means that he wants to. Bilbo delights in taking his time with his correspondence.

Today, however, it seems that he is doomed to be interrupted by a tall elderly looking soft-shell human standing directly in front of his airlock.

Bilbo isn’t expecting any visitors and queries security to see if anyone has checked in to see him. There is nothing in his docket so he elects to ignore the man until he doesn’t something of interest, which he does not. He merely stands there with the air of someone who is waiting for something –or at least Bilbo thinks he is. Sadly, Bilbo’s understanding of soft-shell body language is not as good as it could be especially among the races who are not Hobbits.  

“Good morning!” He ventures after a time, wondering if he should perhaps alert security after all. He’s heard that soft-shell bodies are not particularly kind to brains in their old age and that sometimes their old folk tend to…well, _wander_.

“What do you mean?” The old fellow asks. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel it is a good morning; or that it is simple a morning to be good on?”

“Well, all of those at one, I suppose.” Bilbo replies, feeling a bit flummoxed. Soft-shells never cease to confuse him. Either they expect him to be a funny little man hiding in the ceiling and talking to them through the vents or they prefer to treat him like little more than a very advance artificial intelligence with no thoughts or motivations of his own. Funny how he suddenly prefers either of those options to, well, whatever this is.

Perhaps it is time to hire a new Brawn, if only to have someone mobile around to come outside and gently guide this soft-shell back to wherever it was that he slipped away from his minders.

“…and a very fine morning to enjoy the sunshine as well. Perhaps you would like to have a seat and rest yourself for a moment?” Bilbo offers and dials security. Strangely, they do not answer. “There’s no hurry. We have the whole day.”

“Harumph!” says the elderly chap. “I have no time for sitting today. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, but it is very difficult to find the proper sort of ship.”

“I should think so!” Bilbo agrees and is glad to finally make sense of what is going on. “We are very plain and quiet folk in these parts. Hardly anyone is interested in adventuring, no. Nasty, dirty, and uncomfortable things that put you behind in your flight plan and make you miss your scheduled landings! No, I can’t see what anyone sees in them myself.” He hastens to add, just in case the old man has any idea of hiring HIM, “Perhaps you ought to speak to a Union Rep? They take BB ship rights very seriously in these parts and are not at all made happy when someone tries to lure one into a contract without a representative present.”

Bilbo returns to his letters, well satisfied that he has set the man straight –only. Only.

He doesn’t seem to be _leaving_.

“Good _morning_.” Bilbo tells him as a pointed good-bye. “We don’t want any unsanctioned contracts or adventuring here. Try over The Hill Inc. or Across the Water, LTD.”

“What a lot of things you Shell People use ‘Good Morning’ for!” The man chuffs and grips his tall walking stick with both hands. “I suppose now you mean that I had better leave before you put Security on me.”

Bilbo has in fact been ringing space base security since the beginning of this conversation, but they have yet to answer. It’s as though they cannot hear him, but when he queries their server he gets back a satisfactory echo that means they ARE there. They just can’t hear him.

“Not at all, my dear sir!” Bilbo says hastily, hoping to delay the man a bit longer. There are stories running through his mind now of ship jackers stealing unprotected BB ships right off their launch pad, killing their Brawns, and stripping their shells to leave the Brain floating in full sensory-deprivation like so much scrap in an asteroid field. “Let me see, I don’t think I know your name.”

“Yes, yes, ‘my dear sir’ –and I do know your name, Bilbo –or perhaps you’d rather be called XB-1009 now that you’ve retired and severed all but the minimal contact with us squishy soft-shell folk?” He replies tartly. “And you do know my name, though you do not remember that I belong to it! I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me! To think that I should live to be ‘Good Morninged!’ by Belladonna Took’s son like contract scalper who snuck onto the tarmac over poorly guarded fence.”

“Gandalf?” Bilbo asks and does a hasty review of his mother’s vid calls. “Never the wandering wizard who made Old Took a pair of audio-controlled neodiamond cufflinks that never came off until ordered to? Not the fellow who used to make such particularly excellent fireworks? I remember those. My mother sent me several recordings of your work and I was the envy of my entire glass when she managed to capture on in full immersion HD.” Bilbo had of course also received quite a few fulminations from his father on the subject of ‘that mad old longshanks’ who convinced more than one promising Shire lad and lass to go off into stars to find a good adventure. “Gracious me, I had no idea you were still in the business –or that creatures of your sort lived so long. You soft-shells are so terribly fragile after all.”

The wizard seems quite pleased and flattered up until that last part when he huffs and scowls and asks, “Where else should I be? All the same, I’m glad to see you remember something of me –even if it is only my fireworks. Hmm, very well. You are hired, Bilbo.”

“I beg your pardon, I haven’t agreed to anything!” Bilbo objects.

“I give you my pardon, dear Bilbo, and will go so far even as to send you on this adventure.” Gandalf replies. It’s as though they are having two entirely separate conversations. “It will be good for you and, I think, very amusing for me.”

“No adventures! Not today and not ever, thank you. Good morning!” Bilbo cries, feeling completely turned around. On the one hand here is an old connection where he thought they’d all died ahead of him, but on the other the old man is completely off his nut. “…but come to tea whenever you like. Come tomorrow! Why not tomorrow? Good bye!”

With that Bilbo shut his docking bay, switches off all his exterior lights, and immerses himself in dear Drogo’s vid until he’s sure the soft-shell has gone.

He checks later and is relieved to see that Gandalf has left and the exterior corridor is empty save for an annoying bit of graffiti on the outside of his airlock’s hatch that none of his servos can properly reach to buff away.

Bilbo spends the rest of the afternoon reviewing the Pilots’ hiring board hoping to find someone both suitably qualified and menacing enough to prevent this sort of thing ever happening again.

He arranges a few interviews, but there aren’t many BB-rated pilots to be had out here on the rim of space certainly no one he expects to establish much rapport with. However, he isn’t working for CenCom anymore and there’s no fine for firing his pilots anymore.

 

* * *

 

By the time tea-time comes around the next day, Bilbo has all but given up on the idea of hiring a pilot all over again.

He’s sat through two interviews that are the most painful examples of their kind in his entire existence. One is what old Hamfast used to call an old school spacer, which is a very polite way of describing the older generation of pilots who are unable to bear anything automated or out of their direct control on their vessels. The one Bilbo interviewed this morning seemed to view him as some odd combination of employer and emergency back-up system.

He was sloppily dressed and he demanded not only full authority over Bilbo’s control yolk, but also to be the sole presence in the pilot’s chamber; an impossible feat considering that is precisely where the column housing Bilbo’s meat body is located. That’s not even touching their conflicts over who would be soliciting work from the BB Ship Union.

Bilbo ended up shouting the nasty little man off his decks just in time for the next potential brawn, a paternal cousin of his in fact, to arrive.

The less said about Otho Sackville-Baggins and his wife the better. Had Bilbo known anything about either of them beforehand, he might have saved himself a headache by never mentioning their family connection or even contacting them in the first place. Bilbo’s parents were lovely, understanding, and liberal people who had no doubts about Bilbo’s claim to personhood. Otho seemed an all-right if fairly stuffy sort, but Lobelia came on board with the attitude that Bilbo was part of Bungo Baggins’ estate and that this wasn’t so much an interview for her husband as them assuming _ownership_ of him.

Ownership! The very _idea_.

To say that interview ended badly would be a heinous, heinous lie because that would imply that the painful experience has ended. Bilbo had them escorted out his airlock by space base security, but has already had to forward several seizure notices from the Sackville-Bagginses’ lawyers to both his Union Rep and the local Consul for BB Ship Rights.

There were other interviews slated for today, but none of them have shown up. Bilbo has one left for the day before he can lock up his access hatch and indulge in a good long sulk, but he isn’t holding out much hope when the candidate passed through CenCom’s pilot program only to be denied a ship when he failed the exit psych exam. That was, ironically, right about the time Bilbo was leaving the shipyard.

There aren’t a lot of dwarves who go for pilot certification, but the ships who take them on as Brawns enjoy having partners who don’t die or retire or get married within a few decades. He granted the interview out of curiosity. After all, it’s been a long time. Perhaps he’s whatever psychological impediment prevented him from getting a ship all those years ago.

Bilbo is cautiously optimistic up until an enormous dwarf covered all over in axes and tattoos presents himself at the hatch and pounds thunderously on it.

Years later, Bilbo will look back on this very moment and wonder what would have come to pass if he’d just turned off his exterior lights, locked the hatch, and waited for the dwarf to leave. Perhaps his life would be the better for it.

…perhaps.

All the same, he opens the hatch and lets in everything that’s waiting on the other side.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Gandalf appears –with, decontam it, _even more_ dwarves- Bilbo is at his wits’ end and has resorted to sending his servos scuttling around, chasing dwarves who are wolfing down all his supplies and making an enormous mess.

“Oh, but they’re such a merry party when you get to know them!” Gandalf laughs as they mill around him and studiously ignore any attempt on Bilbo’s part to get them to _put that down_ or _please don’t throw that_!

“Confusticate and bebother these dwarves!” Bilbo fusses. His waste system is already at capacity and there isn’t a window to flush out the gray water system for another seven standard hours and who dares guess what his biowaste levels will be by then! “I did not say you might bring guests, Gandalf! I have a pilot coming in interview and this is hardly a way to make a good impression!”

“Don’t worry, dear fellow.” Gandalf assures him. “I know he’s a bit late, but at least you have these others to keep you company until then.”

“That’s just it, I…” Bilbo stops and would frown if he had anything at all to frown with. “Wait, how did you know about that? I hadn’t even told you before now that I was expecting a pilot, much less that he was tardy.”

“I’m a wizard, dear boy.” Is his mild reply. “I have my ways.”

“I’ve noticed that your ways mainly involve railroading over people until things go the way you planned.” Bilbo replies, having run fresh out of time, manners, and patience in general for all this nonsense. “Don’t think I haven’t seen what you’re up to!”

“And what is that?” Gandalf asks, seemingly curious.

“You need transportation for your adventure or whatever it is and you think to bully me into providing it.” Bilbo says and tries to ignore the way the party has quieted in the galley. He spent years with the D-core and CenDip and the ISS. He’s argued with heads of state and petty diplomats, all of whom wanted him to give them things they weren’t to have. “I may not have hands and feet the way you soft-shells have, but I shan’t be bullied! I am a hundred and fifty years old this summer and that is a hundred and forty-nine years too long to tolerate this nonsense. Your friends may stay until your party is over because I am not so cruel as to toss them all out, but I will sound-lock the boardroom the instant my interviewee enters the airlock. Afterwards you will leave and be grateful that I don’t bill you for the supplies you consumed.”

He doesn’t actually begrudge them the food. It all starts as raw protein, fat, and carbohydrates in his synthesizers. Shirefolk tend to prefer real food and pack their own meals whenever they take a trip to Bree. Bree folk don’t tend to visit the Shire at all and thus rarely step onto Bilbo’s deck. So his synthesizers haven’t gotten a workout in a good many months and he was due to flush out all his raw components in exchange for new anyway. So it’s hardly a waste, but Gandalf doesn’t need to know that.

Besides, it’s rude to invite guests along when you yourself are a guest. Bilbo cannot abide by poor manners and refuses to encourage them in others.

“Of course, of course.” Gandalf agrees too quickly. “We will be very quiet when Thorin arrives, you need have no fear.”

Bilbo had not, in fact, told the wizard his potential Brawn’s name which leads him to wonder if this Thorin even applied for the post at all. The man’s psychological exams reveal a severe A-type personality, a real ENTJ on the on the Myers-Briggs scale. He is, at this point, nearly an hour late which doesn’t fit with the picture his files paint of a driven and hyper-capable individual.

“You are, ah… you seem very interested in making a good impression on this Brawn.” Gandalf observes and that hammers the nails into Bilbo’s suspicions –if only because he had in fact been warming up to the idea of this particular Brawn. After all, he’s had to suffer through quite a few of the puffed-up little tossers that CenCom cleared as Brawns throughout his career. Hamfast was old school and near the end of his career when he paired up with Bilbo. He’d long since lost the shellac of spit-and-polish that new graduates seemed to be coated in as they rolled out of graduation and into their actual jobs.

Bilbo is saved from voicing his concerns by a query at his airlock. A check of his external cameras reveals one final dwarf whose features are an 89% match for the still in Bilbo’s file. He’s changed a little with age. His features have lost whatever baby-fat they ever had and there is silver in his long hair. He has it scraped back in a spacer’s queue, of course, and his beard has been trimmed close in deference to the demands of his career… which seems to be that of a systems engineer, if his well-worn skinsuit is anything to go by.

To be honest, Bilbo loses a few crucial seconds in cycling the airlock because he’s getting in a good look at the man. The ‘brawn’ in the traditional brain ship and brawn pilot pairing is a figurative title and only refers to a pilot’s status as a soft-person as opposed to the shell-people they’re partnered with, however some brawns are … _brawnier_ than others and Thorin Oakenshield is a prime example of the latter variety.

Thorin Oakenshield looks around Bilbo’s main deck with judgment in his gaze as he steps aboard and Bilbo might have missed it, if he hadn’t seen so many soft-shells make that particular face today.

“I asked you to find us a _ship_ , Gandalf.” He says without the slightest acknowledgement of Bilbo’s existence. “…not a third-gen passenger drone. I had a walk about the exterior and the hull is a mess. It hasn’t a single gun and if this old tug even has a hyper-drive I will be very surprised.”

It’s a little gratifying to see Gandalf cover his eyes in mortification halfway through that winning little speech, but Bilbo cannot be made to care. This is one of those rare times when he’s glad he doesn’t feel things acutely the way soft-shells do, the haptic feedback from anger alone must be crippling.

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” Bilbo says and his tone is so cold that it comes as a surprise –even to him- that there aren’t icicles forming on his speakers.

“Thorin Oakenshield,” Gandalf makes a gesture in the direction of Bilbo’s pilot chamber –a place that this particular dwarf may now count on never being admitted into. “May I introduce my dear friend, XB-1009, who is in fact equipped with a Singularity Drive as well as a hyper subdrive. He answers to the name of ‘Bilbo’.”

“XB…” Thorin looks stricken, which is just one more article of proof that he never set his palm-print on the application sitting in Bilbo’s database. It must be a forgery. “That’s a brainship call sign... and you’re an X-designate? You have no brawn?”

“That is correct.” Bilbo takes care to modulate his tone. It isn’t Thorin’s fault, after all, that he was manipulated into being here –even if he has all the personality of a rabid tomcat trapped in a gravity well. “I am retired and run the passenger lanes between the Shire and Bree; perhaps it’s work that a droneship could do, but I find it restful.”

…and a bit boring, but boredom is practically novelty at this point in his lifecycle.

“Bilbo here is having a few problems that have recently convinced him to hire a brawn from the private sector.” Gandalf neatly steers the conversation back into the direction he clearly wants it to go in. “It occurred to me that you both might be in a position to help one another.”

“I…” Thorin’s eyes jerk towards the hatch concealing Bilbo’s control panel. There’s a flash of naked longing there, quickly concealed. “I do not have the correct certification. I was trained as a Brawn, but never received my flight clearance.” The words are clearly costing him, but oddly Bilbo thinks better of him for saying them.

“Certification is only required for piloting ships still under contract.” Gandalf replies. “Many ships prefer to train their own Brawns after buying out their outfitting debts to Lab School. After the recent attempts at legal seizure, I’m positive that Bilobo would appreciate your military backg…”

“Now wait a moment!” Bilbo interjects. “How did you know about… about… my legal problem? For one, it is being handled by my Union Rep and for another I would never have _started_ interviewing Brawns if it hadn’t been for you standing in my airlock trying to pressure me into an unsanctioned contract.”

“My dear boy, I assure you that I had nothing to do with your odious relatives’ unfortunate behavior. However, you must realize that this is a neat solution? With a Brawn at your helm, especially a combat veteran with High Family connections, it would be very difficult for the Sackville-Baggins to make a case that you require legal supervision.”

“ _Supervision_?!” Bilbo shrieks because he hadn’t heard any such thing, but there’s a lawyer’s notice in his inbox that he’s put off reading until morning. He scans it now in a tenth of a second and Gandalf is correct; Lobelia’s lawyer is trying to have Bilbo declared mentally incompetent and thus a ward of his nearest blood relatives. It’s a speedy case, but they must be trying to shove it through a local court before the Ship Union office can send a rep to deal with the issue. “Decontam _that_! I’ll just head away to Bree until a representative arrives to argue my case. Space Base doesn’t have the facilities to detain me if I don’t consent to be detained. Even if they manage it, my cousins cannot force me to do a single thing. I’ll just sit on my launch pad soaking up docking fees that they’ll be responsible for.”

His money is, thankfully, squirreled away in accounts that are carefully overseen and guarded by fund managers whose entire career is centered around fending off exactly these kind of sharks. The Sackville-Baggins can try to have the money released to them, but Bilbo’s financial advisors have lawyers who will tie them up in counter-suits for years if need be. A lot of them work pro-bono just to keep this sort of precedent from being established.

“Yes, but it might be years before you were allowed to enter the Yavanna system unmolested.” Gandalf points out with exquisite patience. He must be very pleased with himself. “I’m offering you a quicker option and a bit of adventure on the side. Surely you’ve gotten tired to plodding back and forth between the same two ports of call?” He pauses and adds, “I’m also aware that the colonists in this area don’t always know what to do with a sentient ship. Here you have a capable and willing Brawn along with an entire crew of folk who would speak to you as a person instead of a highly advanced AI with no feelings to hurt.”

“Leaving aside the issue of the first…” Bilbo says. “I’ve seen no evidence of the second. Your ‘merry party’ has scarcely spared me three words that weren’t ‘ _that’s the door_ ’, ‘ _is there anymore snythosausage_ ’, and ‘ _oops, I hope that wasn’t valuable_ ’.”

“To be fair, you haven’t spared them three words that aren’t ‘ _get down from there_ ’, ‘ _don’t touch that_ ’, and ‘ _put that down_ ’.” Gandalf replies with a benign smile that somehow makes him feel worse than any scolding he ever received in his babyshell. “I think there’s room for fresh starts all around. At the very least, come hear what is involved in the adventure. To tell the truth, there are few places where it’s safe for us to speak about it and even if you decide again accompanying us, the loan of your boardroom is invaluable.”

“…I’m making no promises, but that you may have.” Bilbo replies, still feeling like an errant school boy.

“Thank you.” Gandalf says with a polite nod and something in Bilbo’s wetware finally unknots.

The ‘thank you’ is nice and all he’d wanted in the first place, except perhaps a few ‘please’s.

It occurs to him too late that Thorin, his prospective Brawn, has not said a word since admitting to the fact that he’d basically been slumming as a grease monkey since graduation. When Bilbo returns his attention to Thorin, the dwarf’s face is closed off and whatever… vulnerability Bilbo might have sensed earlier has been deeply buried.

‘Whether I agree or not…’ Bilbo thinks to himself. ‘…I may have missed my chance to connect with him.’

Strange how disheartening that feels after only five minutes acquaintance.

Gandalf calls them to order in the boardroom and Bilbo tunes his audio receivers to pick up every last spoken word. He doubts he’ll be part of whatever ‘adventure’ it is that Gandalf has cooked up, but… well… there’s no harm in _listening_ , is there?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I realize canonically Thorin should be having more of a royal sneer than he is here, but within the context of the universe Bilbo is almost literally the pilot's holy grail. Brainships are super advanced and even one that rolled out of the shipyards 140 years ago is superior to a top market ai-driven ship. As you can tell by Bilbo's age, his hardware is engineered to _last_.
> 
> Thorin is basically looking down the barrel of a dream he had to give up over a century ago ....aaaaand he just insulted it to its face without thinking.


	3. Chapter 3

Funny. When Bilbo gave into his unbalanced and no doubt hormonally-based yearning to see …well, pretty much anything that wasn’t the same two space bases all over again, he’d imagined that the dwarves would immediately respond to the databurst he sent out to them (they did), load their supplies (they did), he would take on supplies, flush his bio-caches, and then they would all be off.

It turns out dwarves have their own notion of proper pre-flight procedures and Thorin’s men have been over his exterior with a fine tooth comb. Not that a little pampering at the hands of a fleet of highly qualified techs isn’t pleasant, but Bilbo had thought there was an element of _urgency_ to this whole affair.

Thorin is by far the best and the worst of them. The best in that he’s tossed the Sackville-Bagginses off of Bilbo’s launch pad no less than four times all while personally overseeing whatever work his people feel Bilbo need that can’t be done by one of their own ---and yet also the worst in that he has very unrealistic expectations about what kind of retrofitting Bilbo will tolerate or can even have done in this end of space.

“You need weaponry.” Thorin is insisting at this particular moment. Last time they had this argument it was about Bilbo’s scanning arrays, which are perfectly adequate even if they aren’t the fancy LADAR long-range ones Thorin wanted to have installed and was only forced to pass on when Bilbo pointed out that finding a shipyard that had the materials and could do the work would add weeks or even a month to their time table.

“It would be an unnecessary tax on my systems, Thorin.” Bilbo sighs. He’s seen this particular fight coming ever since Thorin put his palm print (his REAL palm print this time) to the temporary contract binding them together as a brain and brawn. “I am built to outmaneuver unfriendly attention. I don’t have the armor for a sustained fire-fight. They build those plodding military types with thick shells to soak damage. You’ll have to make peace with the fact that we’ll be outrunning any raiders we encounter.”

“You need at least one gun. The trawlers don’t always run the lanes where we’re going and you at least need to be prepared to clear obstacles from your path.”

“That is what my sonic barriers are for.” Bilbo replies and finds it precious that Thorin thinks there’s a trawler brave and patient enough to keep anything in the vicinity of Bree clear of trash. The Breefolk aren’t the socially responsible types and the colony is usually surrounded by a cloud of ejecta. “I am quite used to clearing my own path.”

“There are still goblins to contend with.” Thorin makes a face at Bilbo’s nearest camera. “…and you can’t always count on outrunning them.”

“You can’t count on shooting them either.” Bilbo sighs. Goblin raiders are a problem, that is true. An entire race of pirates is nothing to sniff at. However, Bilbo is fairly sure that Thorin is overestimating their chances when tangling with the warg-class fighters that goblins pilot.

Wargs might as well be made of toilet paper compared to Bilbo, but they travel in packs and can attach themselves to a careless ship’s hull and cut their way inside to let a boarding party on. Because of that, they like to hide on asteroids or other large bits of flotsam and wait for unsuspecting ships to pass by. Moreover, Goblins are hardy little shits. Their ships might never be further than three steps away from the garbage heap, but a Goblin can survive any environment short of a hard vacuum.

“Besides, this is the LADAR scanners all over again.” Bilbo continues, implacable. “They simply aren’t available. Check the vendor catalog yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Thorin does and stands cursing at Bilbo’s console in Khuzdul for some time when Bilbo is proven to be correct.

The others seem to be doing a bit better and are more satisfied with their tasks. Actually, Bilbo is sorry he ever fussed at most of them. Bombur has made himself at home in the kitchens and Bilbo’s forgotten what it’s like having an actual chef on board. It’s not a luxury his passengers could often afford even in his earliest days with CenDip but sometimes the diplomats he squired across the galaxy would bring their own personal cooks with them, especially on long tours. Bombur’s brothers, Bofur and Bifur are quite nice as well. Bifur doesn’t speak a word of galactic standard and seems to suffer from a peculiar variant of aphasia that limits him to all but his mother tongue –and even that, Bilbo suspects, is limited. Bofur is an artisan who moonlights as a janitor, but for all his mischief he seems to be one of the steadiest souls aboard; third after Ori, a communications grad student who’s in the middle of a gap year, and Thorin’s second in command; Balin, who reminds Bilbo of the old soldiers he once worked with.

Balin has a brother, Dwalin, who is a former law enforcement officer whose career was blighted by the fact that his close ties to the Kingdom-in-Exile of Erebor, which is known less politely as the ‘vagrant armada’.

KIE Erebor doesn’t quite deserve the reputation its people have as shiftless wanderers. After all, most of their population re-settled fairly quickly in nearby mining operations and other Dwarrow colonies. However, KIE Erebor’s head of state was never able to find a place to settle their navy and thus a part of Erebor continues to wander the stars, irritating Colonial Affairs, and making small non-Dwarrow governments very nervous to this day. A lot of people are still waiting for them to turn raider even though it’s been over a century and the armada has only intervened in Dwarrow affairs and some minor peacekeeping efforts, all of which were solicited in advance by the governments involved.

Still, it’s a black mark on his record that even Bilbo can access and that in addition to his _extensive_ collection of tribal tattoos has probably kept him from all but the least appealing of posts.

Gloin is another former LEO, whose career has gone somewhat better since he has a wife and child who are settled in the old Dwarrow colony of Ered Luin, which makes him seem a bit more stable. His brother Oin is a half-deaf medic who wears an old-school hearing aid that Bilbo is half tempted to replace in his sleep.

Still yet to go are Dori and Nori, Ori’s older brothers. Dori is a good sort and almost a stereotypical Dwarfish engineer with generalizations in enviro, nav systems, HVAC, plumbing, and some limited combat work. He has a reassuringly smudged work history with the normal sort of tardies, backtalk, and the occasional drunken brawl, which is a veritable picture of innocence next to his brother whose record is (at first) conspicuously immaculate ---and also faker than a goblin’s credit chit. It takes a little hacking, but Bilbo finds remnants of Nori’s record lurking here and there on the Net; he’s a grifter by trade with sticky fingers when the situation calls for it and a silver tongue.  

Last, but not least, are Thorin’s two young nephews; a pair of troublemakers, if Bilbo ever saw the type. Fili and Kili are nominally in University, although Bilbo can find no trace of them actually attending anywhere. They’re using Ori’s ‘gap year’ excuse, although Bilbo suspects Ori has a more legitimate claim to it. They’re both combat-trained, having been raised onboard one of the vagrant armada’s liveships, and have qualifications as journeyman electricians… but there’s something queer about their records that Bilbo can’t quite put his metaphorical finger on. Thorin’s is the same. There are parts of the public record that just ---isn’t public when Bilbo tries to query those databases using ‘Fili’, ‘Kili’, ‘Thorin’, or anything at all with ‘Oakenshield’ in the search strings.

It’s almost as if they have diplomatic status and are thus exempted from the freedom of information act.

Bilbo’s not quite sure what he thinks of that.

“I am querying the markets in Bree.”

…well, he’s quite sure what he thinks of Thorin at least.

“If you think you can find an artillery array without the serial numbers filed off then please, be my guest. I’ll let you install it without a word of protest.” Bilbo fancies he can see steam coming out his Brawn’s ears. “I wish you the best of luck. In the meantime, perhaps Gandalf is interested in a round of Battle Chess?”

Rhetorical question; Gandalf likes Battle Chess only slightly less than he likes meddling and clogging up Bilbo’s air filtration systems with that pipe of his.

Thorin calls Bilbo something in Khuzdul that is probably not an endearment and they ignore each other for the rest of the afternoon.

 

* * *

 

Bilbo is minding his own business and attending to the minutae of interstellar travel when his sensors alert him to a minor fracas going on in the main cabin. No surprise, it’s Thorin and Gandalf at each other’s throats.

They’ve been in transit for about two weeks and –as is often the case- tempers are starting to wear thin after so much time spent around the same faces. Frankly, they’ve held off longer than Bilbo expected, but only because Thorin spends most of his time in Bilbo’s chamber with technical manuals while Bilbo refuses to let him drive until Thorin’s passed the latest astrogation qualification exam.

(Judging by Thorin’s progress on the practice tests, Bilbo suspects he ought not to have worried, but is saving a proper apology for when –not if- the dwarf passes.)

 “We need to take on water and fresh supplies.” Thorin is telling Gandalf, both of which are true things. Bilbo and Bombur have been stretching what’s on board, but a party of fourteen is a lot to handle even for a frigate, which Bilbo is most decidedly not. They’re low on fresh water and Bilbo really needs to flush the waste caches. He could do that any old time, but he so dislikes ejecting unnecessary garbage into space. One never knows where it will end up. Such things are at least useful planetside. “There’s a waystation in the Trollshaws where we can stop with minimal impact to our timetable.”

“That is unwise. We can push through to Imladris with proper rationing.” Gandalf replies, looking more perturbed. “The elves at Rivendell station are hospitable folk and I mislike the news from the Trollshaws. Entire colonies have gone dark in the last year. Foul things are moving within the void.”

“We need no aid from the _elves_.” Thorin spits (very nearly literally).

 “There you are mistaken.” Gandalf snorts and plucks the silvery datahedron he’d shown about that first night from his sleeve. “Unless, of course, you’ve managed to decrypt this without help? No? I thought not. Lord Elrond is the keeper of many of the old encryption codes including those of your kind.”

“Yes, I’m well aware that your elven spy master managed to decrypt many of our old communications.” Thorin replies, stalking past the wizard. “Did you not wonder why we kept having to _change_ them?”

“Not matter how they came into his hands, you need the knowledge only he has.” Gandalf is losing patience and Bilbo prepares to switch off all his cameras and microphones in the event that the wizard feels the need to shout. His sensors are still smarting from that last time and he’d just as soon not go through it again.

The exchange becomes more heated and Bilbo resolutely shifts his focus elsewhere. After some time Gandalf stalks out of the cabin and Thorin comes into the pilot’s chamber for a good sulk. Then he directs Bilbo to set a course for the Trollshaws.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a filler/background chapter, but the next one involves the Trolls and I have a feeling that's going to be enough material for its own chapter. :)
> 
> Thorin and Bilbo have to work together a bit more more closely than in the original, where Thorin had the luxury of ignoring his burglar until circumstances force him to do otherwise.


	4. The Trollshaws

The Trollshaws system is sort of a no-man’s land with a cyclical colonization history.

It begins some corporation will uncover the old mineral surveys of the region’s asteroid belt or their conduct their own. Either way they’re lured in with visions of rich iridium deposits dancing in their board rooms and they, in turn, lure colonists with promises of subsidized colonies. There is one earth-type planet and a mars-type with deep salt water oceans that cover some 80% of its surface. Both of these planets have had various names in the past and they’ll have new ones in the future.

Pre-fab settlements are dropped onto one or both of the habitable planets from orbit. The colonists land a few weeks later. They start hydro and aquaponic facilities. In the meantime they eat ration cubes and whatever the synthesizers produce. Everything is good for a year or so and then colonies stop checking in. When the military goes to investigate, there’s nothing left except a few scraps of synthosteel and sand blasted soil.

Bilbo has lived to see this cycle happen twice. Elves and even dwarves know better than to bother with the Trollshaws anymore, but short-lived species like Humans are more stubborn. Anything that happened before they were born can’t possibly be relevant _now_. There’s always someone with a new idea, a new theory, or some reason why the colony will take this time.

“I don’t like this.” Bilbo sighs as the waystation comes into range. He queries the mini-station’s AI and gets back a binary echo, but no audio. All signs are green and they’re issued with an approach vector, but ---technically all waystations have to be manned with an emergency response team at the very least. Maybe the crew is on a downcycle, but there should be someone manning the comms.

“I’m not particularly thrilled about it myself.” Thorin grumbles as his hands fly over the navigation console. “…but if we don’t refuel now then there won’t be another opportunity and I will not have us limping into Elf space eating crumbs and running on fumes. Elves are constitutionally incapable of maintaining their policy of non-interference when it comes to my people. We need to be able to run if we have to.”

“Are the elves really so bad?” Bilbo asks. The truth is that most of his instructors at Lab School were elves. Young Brains don’t handle death well, especially in the case of someone who is meant to be a stable element in their lives and Dwarves are notoriously bad at educating individuals who aren’t other Dwarves.

All his life, Bilbo has had to be at peace with the fact that soft-people die. Even Elves die …or vanish. Something. No one is entirely sure where they go or what they do beyond the fact that occasionally they hire a Grayship -brainships who are close to the end of their considerable lifecycles- to take them there. The Elves are never seen again and neither are their Grayships.

“They are meddlesome.” Thorin engages the autopilot and sits back into the acceleration couch. “…which is fine for peaceful folk who do not care who it is that patrols their borders so long as the Orc Dominion keeps their distance, but my kind prefers to see to our own security. The Elves are threatened by us and spend far too much time hacking into our communications or opposing our new settlements with Colonial Affairs. They detain our merchants to search their holds for contraband weapons. If Dwarrow civilians travel through Elf space they must budget time for when they are inevitably detained by customs. Our shipments are delayed or lost entirely. If they do arrive then the transit seals have been broken and replaced. A lesser species would have gone to war over such consistent harassment long ago, but we do not have the resources.” He snorts and tilts his head back towards the ceiling. “Elrond is the worst of them. He made a career out of meddling in my father and grandfather’s affairs. The wizard would serve us up to him on a silver platter in the seat of his power.”

“Gandalf seems very invested in your success.” Bilbo points out. He is in a position to know, after all, just how far Gandalf is willing to go to get these Dwarves what they need to continue their journey. “I find it hard to believe he’d set you up for failure.”

“I have not survived this long or brought my people so far by being complacent.” Thorin pushes himself to his feet. “Call the others to the main cabin. I’ll brief them on our timetable. Send out a general alert when we’re five minutes out.”

“As you wish.” Bilbo mutters and reminds himself that Thorin’s social conditioning classes were over a century ago. He’s accustomed to giving orders, but eventually Bilbo knows he is going to have to lay down the law about how they will speak to one another in private.

The others are clearly more accustomed to Thorin’s autocratic ways and assemble in the main cabin without complaint or dawdling.

“We won’t be staying long.” Thorin tells his men. Gandalf is conspicuously absent and Bilbo can’t pick him up in any of the common areas, ergo he must be having a sulk in his cabin. “Bilbo has only received a pingback from the station’s AI, so we’ll have to assume that the facilities are unmanned against CenCom regulations. Fuel takes priority. Fili and Kili, you’ll top off our emergency rations. Bofur and Bifur will flush the waste system and top off our clean water. Go armed and walk softly. Everyone else is to remain within vicinity of the airlock or refueling points. Am I understood?”

Bilbo waits until the murmurs of assent die down before he breaks in with the proximity alert that Thorin requested.

They dock without difficulty and at first it looks like things are going swimmingly. Bilbo makes Fili and Bofur put on contact buttons before they leave the circle of cameras that Bilbo can easily jack into. They top off Bilbo’s fuel tanks and flush the grey water systems. Then Bifur pulls on Thorin’s sleeve and shows him over to one of Bilbo’s rear thrusters, the one that’s been a bit twitchy during precision maneuvers.

“Your thrice blasted cousins!” Thorin growls as he stalks into his cabin covered in oil and grease. Normally Bilbo would never activate his cameras in any of the staterooms, but Thorin has the habit of addressing Bilbo constantly throughout the day and sometimes during his downcycle. Usually he’s just asking for updates on this that or the other, but he sleeps so irregularly that Bilbo doesn’t have the heart to make the Dwarf leave his bunk in order to stick his head out into the corridor. Either way, it doesn’t seem to bother Thorin. He doesn’t have much of a sense of privacy at least not where Bilbo is concerned.

Thorin still holding the limp remains of what was once the couplings for Bilbo’s combustion manifold. He drops them on the desk and Bilbo focuses a camera on them. Sure enough, they’ve been partially severed with clean little cuts that had to come from a knife or boxcutter of some kind. The edges are hardly frayed at all.

“I must thank you then, for insisting on all that work before we took off.” Bilbo says and tries to ignore the fact that Thorin is stripping off without any heed of the cameras. At least he can be relied upon to put his soiled clothing in the cleaning unit. Some of Bilbo’s past Brawns seemed to think that Bilbo came equipped with servos specifically in order to pick up after them. “Specifically the redundant combustion system. Without it, I think those connectors would have shorted out as soon as I tried to lift off.”

“When this is over, I should have them brought up on charges.” Thorin grumbles as he stalks into his tiny (but private) en suite shower. “What if there had been civilians aboard?”

“They would have been inconvenienced, yes, but I think Otho –if it was indeed Otho- knew what he was doing. I wouldn’t have made it into the air which was very likely the intent. You’ll recall I made the mistake of telling his wife that I would go where they could not reach me. No one would have been harmed, but I would have been grounded for several weeks.” Bilbo replies. He’s been running potential scenarios in the background ever since Bifur brought the matter to Thorin’s (and by extensions, Bilbo’s) attention. “Also, I _do_ wish you wouldn’t insist on carrying on conversations in the sanitary facilities.”

“Squeamish Hobbit.” In any other creature, Bilbo would suspect the rumble in Thorin’s voice to be a chuckle. However this is Thorin and Bilbo has empirical evidence that the Dwarf lacks a sense of humor so he must be mistaken. “It is merely skin.”

“Perhaps.” Bilbo allows. “However, I… well. There are regulations in place to prevent this sort of thing. You know which ones.”

“I’m in no danger of developing a fixation on you. Don’t worry about that.” Thorin is _definitely_ laughing at him now.

“Oh, _thank you_ for that.” Bilbo sniffs. He’s aware that he’s no one’s catch, but Brawn Fixation is a very real danger that strikes without warning. Still, Dwarves are statistically unlikely to succumb to the urge and Thorin is hardly suffering from the extended social isolation thought to cause the condition in the first place. Besides, the Lab Schools have long since identified the personality types most likely to develop unhealthy attachments to an unattainable partner and flunk them out of Brawn training early. Bilbo chides himself for his pointless worries and then deliberately adjusts the temperature in the shower down from scalding hot to just below lukewarm. He chuckles audibly at Thorin’s yelp.

“Capricious thing!” Thorin emerges from the shower wearing only a towel in retaliation and it’s a good one that renders Bilbo silent for several minutes; long enough for Thorin to dress without comment. Still, he seems in a better mood now for whatever reason. It’s hard to predict his mood swings, but Bilbo has learned that even though he detests disrespect in a public setting, Thorin seems to enjoy being sassed in private.

Thorin picks up the damaged connectors and frowns at them. “We’ll need to stay longer than anticipated to replace these. Send a data burst out to the others. I’m adding four hours onto our timetable.” He sits down at the desk and takes out a data pad to start working in the repairs into their schedule.

“Aye aye, your _highness_.” Bilbo quips and is surprised by the way Thorin jerks and glares at him over the honorific. _Interesting_.

Bilbo almost shuts off the mics in Thorin’s chamber, except just as he goes to do so Thorin suddenly speaks.

“Bilbo.” He doesn’t look up or away from his data pad, even though his fingers have stopped moving over its glassy surface. “What I said before –it isn’t because of you.”

“Hmmm?” Bilbo rotates a camera trying to get a good look at his Brawn’s face, but to no avail. “I didn’t take it personally Thorin. Don’t worry.”

“What I meant to say is that I was accepted into Brawn training for a specific reason.” Thorin isn’t even pretending to work at his time-table anymore. “I am… among my own kind I say that I am stone. It does not translate well into the common tongue. ‘Asexual’ is not quite right. It implies… well, there are urges that I do not feel yet others that I still do. I am still capable of creating bonds with others, I merely…”

“…but you aren’t interested in the messy business of consummating them.” Bilbo guesses and does not vocalize his amusement at the offended look Thorin shoots towards his cameras. “You are asexual, but not aromantic?”

Thorin nods once. His knuckles are white on the edge of the pad and Bilbo recalls a bit too late that sexuality is a sensitive subject for soft-people.

“I as well.” Bilbo admits. “…by choice and not necessity. There is no shame in it.” He adds because some of his kind are still interested in the physical aspects of a relationship, even though such a thing would be very hard for them to attain. It is possible, with the aid of a robotic proxy, but such things are expensive… as expensive as a contract buy-out even. “Thank you for sharing this with me, Thorin. I appreciate that it was not easy.”

“I spoke without care earlier.” He replies gruffly. “I would not have you think that I held you in contempt.”

No, he probably wouldn’t. That is one element of Brawn training that seems to have held fast in Thorin Oakenshield.

Bilbo knows that he and Shell People in general are vulnerable to their Brawns as a result of their conditioning in infancy and just by plain circumstance. Brawns are trained to become nurturers even if that isn’t their personal inclination. It manifests in different ways, of course, and Bilbo has had to deal with everything from Brawns who treat him or others of his kind like brain damaged toddlers to the kind who are border on being compulsively over-protective. Thorin falls somewhere in the middle of the scale and leans more towards the disciplinarian rather than the nursemaid.

“Perhaps a _little_ contempt.” Bilbo replies good-naturedly. “It is all right. We are very different sorts, you and I.”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god, I don't even know what this is. I was trying to write the last chapter of Gardening and Bilbo's all 'LOL NOPE I'M A SPACE SHIP NOW'. So this is me trying to purge my imagination so I can go back to writing adorable improbable dwobbits.


End file.
